Eclectic fleet powers Samaritan’s Purse in Haiti

International relief organization Samaritan’s Purse is using an eclectic fleet of its own, borrowed and chartered aircraft to respond to the ongoing humani

By Mark Huber • Contributor

February 18, 2010

International relief organization Samaritan’s Purse is using an eclectic fleet of its own, borrowed and chartered aircraft to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Haiti. The day after the January 12 earthquake there, the organization landed emergency assessment and medical teams in Port-au-Prince aboard a turbine DC-3 operated by Missionary Flights International out of Palm Beach. It used chartered DC-6s and L-100s (civil Hercules) to bring in 12 water purification machines, each capable of producing 10,000 gallons of clean water a day. It borrowed a Hughes 500 based in Dallas to sling food and insert medical personnel into remote orphanages and mission hospitals blocked from re-supply by boulder- strewn and impassable roads.

Those efforts were assisted by the charity’s own Quest Kodiak turboprop single. A chartered 19-seat Jetstream 32 from Corporate Flight Management in Smyrna, Tenn., was brought to shuttle medical teams from Fort Lauderdale to Port-au-Prince (MTPP) almost daily.

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